S12e8: Andy Milberg – Exploring the Negative Love Syndrome

Most people think that who they really are is who they're afraid they are, which is the shame and the patterns. And it's huge to find out that who you are is really not who you're afraid you are and not all the patterns you've been acting at. Welcome, everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius.

It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute, and it's stories and anecdotes and people we interview about their life post process and how it lives in the world radiating love. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast. Andy Milberg is with us. Welcome, Andy. Hi, Drew. Nice to be here. So we are talking about negative love, not two words that are usually said together, written together, negative and love.

But here we are talking about what turns out to be a foundational principle of the Hoffman experience, the Hoffman process. Andy, will you share a little bit about negative love? You are often known as the expert around negative love. You've been teaching for many, many years. Talk to us a little bit about what the heck is negative love. Well, Drew, it's really the foundational principle of the Hoffman process that Bob Hoffman came up with

in the late nineteen sixties. So that's, like, almost sixty years ago. He asked two questions. The first question was why does seemingly rational adults continue to act out automatically compulsively in self defeating ways? This could be through behaviors, through their attitudes, through their beliefs, even when these attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors hurt them and hurt the people around them that they care about. So that was question number one. Why it

is seemingly rational adults do this? The second question was, why is it so hard to change? And that's where he came up with the fundamental theory of the process, which is negative lab. That second question, Bob Hoffman asked about why it's so difficult to change these behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, moods that we've learned that are not serving us and interfering with our relationships with ourselves and others. We learned them when we were really young.

I mean, we did mention that it's pre verbal. We were primarily emotional and physical beings. So we took on all this stuff into our physicality, into our emotions energetically. And what most people are trying to do as an adult, seemingly rational adult is think it away. I shouldn't do this. I'm not gonna do that again. And then we get, you know, into a situation. We get triggered and we do it again.

A really important piece of the Hoffman process is to disconnect from the need to act out these patterns, to move that energy out of us and create space for new possibilities and more choice in our life. What a great way to figure something out to ask what is the question we're asking in the first place. Right? Yeah. I mean, he was concerned about the pain that people experience in their worlds, And he was looking for ways to get free from that. And he went all the

way back to childhood, didn't he? He went back to birth because what he realized was that if you think about a human infant, the newborn, a newborn human infant is one of the most helpless beings on the planet. It cannot survive on its own. Other mammals have the capacity to walk, to find food, to have some kind of survival skills very early on, but not human beings. So a human infant is totally needy and dependent on their primary caretakers.

In most cases, their parents for the components of survival, which are basically food and shelter as physical components. But there's also something else that he realized that human beings, human infants need to not only survive, but to thrive. We can call that love, but what is love to a newborn? It's a quality of attention. It's a connection. It's a sense that everything is alright. My caretakers are here for me. I'm gonna survive. I'm okay the way I am.

And what he postulated was that no parents or caretakers can give that child what he called an unconditional sense of love and presence and attention. So in the moments when that connection is lost, then it produces a state of, let's say, unease, anxiety, fear in this very primal being that, oh my god, I'm not gonna survive. What do I have to do to survive? I have to reconnect. There's something wrong.

And a human infant doesn't have the capacity to realize that, well, you know, mom's attention is towards something else right now. Dad's thinking about the ballgame. If there's something wrong, it can't be with the parents who are the the link to survival. So there's something wrong with the infinite self with you, with me. And this is very early, very young, very small, non rational. It's not even a thought. It's a sense of danger to survival, way preverbal.

What Bob postulated was that if there's a sense that there's something wrong, I'm not gonna survive and there's something wrong with me, then I can change to reconnect with my lifeline, my caretakers. And that means being like them, abandoning my essence to take on whatever is around me in the environment, which means my parents' qualities, some good, some not so good.

So again, it comes back to behaviors, moods, attitudes, and beliefs that we start to absorb from our environment, from our caretakers, and that becomes our identity, what we call in the process our false self. It has very much a kind of timeline to it. It starts with the total dependency on parents, the helplessness of infants who are born. It starts with innocence, the purity, the goodness, the light in each being.

There's a universality to this where all parents can't be there all the time, even if we try our best, even if we come from the best families with the best intentioned parents, that negative love will be present in our life whether we try or not. That's correct. But this is not an indictment of parents. It is more about the poignancy of the human condition. What it is to develop as a human being, needing to fit into the family, to connect, to be loved, and who we are.

Yeah. There's something very normalizing about being human and about acquiring patterns that we all have. Like, whether we try or like it or not or, read books or heal our childhood, we will take on patterns just because it's part of being human. There's something freeing about that. Yeah. And one of the interesting parts is that even something that a parent does that maybe have a really positive intention and comes from a place of caring can have a negative impact on the child.

Parent that is too concerned hovers, does things for the child. Now in one sense, this is lovely. But in the other, the infant, the child learns that they don't know how to do it for themselves. They expect others to do it for them, and this can show up later in life, especially in intimate relationships. So the human infant is a really open system that's learning all the time, and some of the things that we learn limit us as we grow older.

Yeah. So because there is that discrepancy between what we need and what can be given to us in that gap, we take on these protective patterns. And you were just earlier talking about the false self. Let's go there a little bit. So now we're moving into the strategy, the coping mechanism, the patterns we take on given the fact that we can't get our needs met, and we have a kind of abandonment of self.

What is this false self people talk about, the gold rings on the negative love map that we display in the classroom every time? Well, before I go into that, I'll be a little personal. It's the idea that, like, when I did the Hoffman process as a student, my attitude coming in was, well, this is who I am. This is the way I've always been. I was delighted to find out that that's not how I always have to be.

If there's much more available to me when I break the automatic compulsivity of the patterns, the hold they have on me, the way they just get triggered in certain situations and take me over energetically and behaviorally. When I was able to break the power of the patterns, it opened up space for new possibilities that I did not and could not have imagined before doing the Hoffman process. So that's where we say, you know, when you're serious about change, that's the change.

And it's not changing into somebody different. It's actually reclaiming all that I can be and my potential rather than being stuck on this, like, one lane road for the rest of my life where something happens in life and I react to it in the same old way. I imagine that's a bit unsettling for students when they come to the process to consider that the way they've been is actually not their authentic self, that it's a bunch of roles and characters and a kind of false self that they've played

in their lives up until now? Well, they come into the process mainly because something's not working, and there's some sense that things can be different. So I would say that, you know, maybe there's a not quite believing the first day that there can be such a profound shift in seven days. We'll put the negative love map in the show notes so people can get

a sense of it. But you're talking about the power of the cycle of transformation, aren't you, really, when it comes to the fact that we can change this setup that is the negative love syndrome? Right. Our methodology in the process has been tested over, what, fifty nine years now, and we keep improving it with the latest research on human behavior. So, yeah, the cycle of transformation is very powerful. But, again, let's get back to negative love and the negative love map.

On that, that initial sense remember, this is all driven by the initial sense that there's something wrong with me, and this is the most hidden part of most people's lives. We can label it as shame later in life. But, initially, it's there's something wrong with me. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I expect to be abandoned or rejected.

It's amazing to me how many people come into the process seemingly successful who are struggling with those feelings every day of their life, if not many moments during the day of I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. There's something wrong with me fundamentally. You know, Andy, when you just said that, what came to me was the arrows and the role the arrows play in the negative love map. Can you talk about those a little bit?

Well, that initial sense of there's something wrong with me, that's, like, unbearable. So that's where we start moving out where the arrows take us out into the attitudes, beliefs, behaviors that we see around us and our parents, the roles we take on in our family, the attitudes we have.

You know, those are all a accumulation of patterns, And we call them negative patterns because they're automatic compulsive, and they're really not a choice when we're in our patterns, when we're acting out our false self of who we had to be in our childhoods to fit into our family, to belong, to try to get love. You know, I heard a teacher say the other day, think of this acronym, CARL, compulsive, automatic, reactive, and learned. And I was like, oh, that's so good.

CARL. We don't realize that because we, you know, we go through life and somebody looks at us the wrong way, and we go into a reaction automatically, we make up stories about it. One of the things I tell my students at the beginning of the process is I use the anachronism guts, give up the stories. We make these powerful stories about ourselves, about our parents, about our childhood, about other people, about situations.

And the stories are are based in the automaticity of what we learned about who we are and how we have to be in life. Part of what you're saying is we're learning things, and we're not even aware that we're learning them. We sort of think, well, this is the way it is. This is the way it's always been. Well, our family is the only reality we know. And I remember one of the teachers would occasionally say, you went through an indoctrination camp for kids called your family.

You know, indoctrination camp has kind of a negative connotation, but let's just say that is again the human condition. And it's not to make your parents wrong or your family wrong. It's just that we all grew up as human beings with other human beings who weren't perfect, and we learn from them. And we learn from them because bonding is so important. It's so critical. Love is not some airy fairy romantic thing. It's an key ingredient for survival, isn't it? It

is. And I'm glad you said the word survival because underneath all this and one of the reasons why, you know, to answer Bob's second question, why is this so difficult to change, is that when we get triggered, there is a survival fear that can be very subtle. Most people aren't aware that that's what actually they're feeling in the deepest core of their being. Non rational. How would I know that that survival fear is there? Okay. I'll give you an example in my marriage.

This is not as much lately. Thank goodness, because I've been working on it for a long time. But if my wife criticizes me, my initial reaction you know, most people have fight, flight, or freeze. My initial reaction is to fight. But if I slow down and look underneath that, it's actually kind of a freeze, a fear of abandonment. Now, all she may be doing is giving me some feedback about something that could be useful for me, but to my little infant brain, oh my god. She doesn't like me. She's

criticizing me. She's gonna leave me. I'm gonna be all alone, abandoned, and I'm gonna die. Wow. That's the there there's no joke. Yeah. That's pretty primal. When you look at the deeper levels of negative love, it comes back down to survival and fear. But our rational adult minds don't like to feel that. So that's where we especially make up stories about what's going on. And in this case, I can make up a story of, oh, she's wrong. She's always criticizing me. What's wrong with her?

That's to protect myself. That's the protective mechanism. You mentioned that earlier about that patterns are a protective mechanism against the fear of abandonment, rejection, and that we won't survive. Oftentimes, people have the experience of doing things that sabotage, that we're all familiar with self sabotage, and knowing better and yet still struggling, still making the same mistake.

Part of what Bob said is that stop looking here at the present situation and not being able to find answers because you'll keep repeating it. Instead, allow yourself to go back into childhood to remember the little being that was the origin of where these patterns came. So part of what you're saying is they work because they kind of gave us what we wanted. They helped us feel connected, and then they don't work as we get older. Right? Right.

Right. It's a brilliant survival strategy based on the I forget which part of the brain it is. It's the back of the brain. It's the early brain, survival oriented. But when we're in the present as an adult and that gets triggered, we go back into that survival brain. We're trying to solve things as a three year old or a five year old. And our adult, let's call it our wise adult self, or in the process we call it the spiritual self, goes offline when we get triggered.

And the trigger can be very quickly, again, on an early emotional and physical level. It was a brilliant adaptation strategy. And it ultimately falls short. Right? Because in the process, you know, we have incredibly successful people, famous people, and wealthy people. By any measure of success, we have those students who sign up for the process because there's some sense that I thought that this successing, this efforting, this striving would bring me peace, love, happiness, contentment,

but it's an illusion, isn't it? Negative love is a bit of an illusion. Absolutely. Especially when it's based in a sense of I'm not okay the way I am. I'm not good enough. And some of the successful people who have done the process, you know, that I've worked with, what I see is like, okay. If I just if I'm just a little more successful, if I just make a little more money, if I just, you know, achieve more, I'll be okay. But it doesn't work that way when the fundamental belief is I'm not okay.

So we that's what we address so strongly in the process to break up that system and recognize that our essence, our deepest core, our essence, we are okay, and we don't have to try to keep proving it to mom, dad, or the world by achieving more or accumulating more. Part of what you're talking about there is shame. Right? This feeling of not good enough, and we go right at shame, don't we? We address it. We name it. We talk about it. It's a big piece of the

process. Right? It's a really important piece. Really important. And there's something about benevolent witnesses, and we know that both John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds Us, and Brene Brown, lots of research and writing they have done on shame. But in a way, the teachers, the students, the classmates are all benevolent witnesses, aren't they? Yes. And that's one of the I would say one of the bonuses of the process is how doing the work in a group setting.

And a lot of people come in feeling very much alone, and I'm nervous about doing this work in a a group setting. But the group setting turns out to be incredibly supportive, and people who come in feeling, well, nobody could understand me. Nobody else in the world would feel this way, realize that, wow. I'm not alone. I'm not the only one. I'm not uniquely broken.

So it's an amazing experience of the process to see how people reclaim their ability to connect with other people and don't feel so isolated and alone in the world. That common humanity is important, isn't it? Extremely. It's a beautiful term, common humanity. Part of what the arrows represent back to those arrows. Because I know for me, it took me a while to be like, what is it with these arrows? Why are they going that way? And once I got trained to be a teacher, I was like, oh, I see. We're

heading in the wrong direction. We're we're moving away from our spirit. That's what patterns do. They send us away from this pain of shame into these coping strategies, and then they send us outside of the false self looking externally. And there's really two key pieces here that represent the outermost rings. Can you talk about them? Oh, yeah. If I only find the right person, everything will be great or the right group affiliation.

Well, unfortunately, people disappoint us, so that strategy doesn't work. And as far as the you know, looking for the one who will complete us, Many of us have done that more than once. But then there's always work, substances, activities. If I just throw myself into my work, I'll be okay. Or I can always count on the bottle of Jack Daniels or whatever it is, the substance. Addictions take on many forms, don't they? Yes.

And, of course, we've got the nationally approved one, which is shopping amplified by the Internet. But I want to go back to what you said about it's taking us in the wrong direction. We're really looking for reconnection with our authenticity, our essence, our core, and by moving out away, looking for something outside of us, we get farther and farther away from that.

So that's another thing that's beautiful about the work of the process is that from the first day we connect you or reconnect you to what we're calling your spiritual self, your essence, your core, your authentic self, and building your relationship with who you are if you're not your patterns. And for many people, that's a revelation that there actually is more to me than my patterns.

Yeah. I mean, it's a little scary to think I am only my patterns and wildly liberating to know that there's this whole another authentic way of being. Right? Yeah. I sometimes use three circles to describe this. There's an inner circle, which is who we really are. Then there's another circle, which is who we're afraid we are, which in process terms is that shame statement. And because of that, there's an a bigger circle, which is who we want the world

to think we are. So they don't know that we're that shameful person that we think we are. And most people think that who they really are is who they're afraid they are, which is the shame and the patterns. Andy, this is huge. Yeah. It's huge To find out that who you are is really not who you're afraid you are and not all the patterns you've been acting out. So on some level, who we are afraid we are is who we're trying to hide. That's one circle.

And then the other circle is who we develop in reaction to who we're afraid we are. But that's the false self. That's another circle. Both those circles are not who we are. We are instead this third circle, which is the authentic, innocent, innately good, wise, whole being that is this third circle. Let's call it a little heart. A little heart. That's a nice visual. Yeah. Our essence is that heart centered, generous, loving, kind, spirit.

So when you took the process, was there a negative love map, or was that developed more recently? No. There was no negative love map. I did just see that we've made the negative love syndrome, trademark. Well, I think that's been trademarked for a while. That's one of the intellectual properties of the process. This is really the first piece we deliver in every process. We have a welcome session, which is just sort of orients people to the work, each other,

the cycle of transformation. But, really, the first foundational piece is the negative love syndrome talk. You often do it when you teach. I imagine Bob was pretty good given he sort of was the origin of this from his own essence. Well, I don't remember from my process if he gave the negative love talk or if someone else gave it. We're going back thirty six years. Thirty six years ago, Andy. Yeah. And I'm still learning about the nuances and the subtleties

of negative love. Because on the face of it, it looks pretty simple. You learn to be who you are from your parents. You take on their patterns or you rebel against their patterns. Neither of which means you're being yourself. It means you're either being them or not them. Now that's kinda binary, but there's a lot of nuances and subtleties in how that shows up, how we might adapt, how a parent was to our particular circumstances in life. But there's still the connection.

And, you know, I find different ways that, oh my goodness, I didn't quite see that connection before. You know, I just realized something recently about what happened when we moved when I was eight years old. There was no communication with me and how that impacted me. That just came up recently. So to be open to to continuing to learn about this and find ways in which negative love limits my life is really a gift, even though it's uncomfortable sometimes.

You know, Andy, when you talk here, part of what I hear you doing is doing a little bit of time travel. You're in the present, but you're also willing to remember the past. And so many people say, oh, is it why is it always about childhood? I I healed my childhood, or I don't have any issues from childhood.

But part of what I hear from you is a real openness, a curiosity, a willingness to allow the past to inform your present, allow what happened in the past that it still lives in your body, and it obviously has some effect on what's happening today. That's pretty cool. And the intention is to get freer and have more choices in life even at 77 years old. We go back not to be stuck there, but actually with the intention to be even more free of it. Good point. Well said. Well, you you

said it. I mean, we're not just navel gazing or indulging, but you're really doing it because you wanna show up more alive even at 77. Absolutely. How is life at 77? You've been teaching for so many years. You're down in Mexico with your wife. How are things going in this aliveness journey? I would say my life is the best that's ever been. Seriously? Yeah. On so many levels. I mean, I'm not physically as limber as I used to be, which has been showing up at my table tennis

club. But the expansion in consciousness and the ability to be present, to open my heart to my wife and my friends and my colleagues, that keeps expanding and to keep learning. I mean, right now, Jonin and I are doing a course with Terry Reel from the Relational Life Institute on couples therapy because we feel like, you know, we've both been interested in couples therapy and work both individually and together on that. And we feel he has a way of

approaching it that really resonates with us. So we're doing online courses with him. I imagine that benefits both your marriage, but also something you guys wanna bring into your practice in working with couples. Right. Beautiful. And table tennis, another word for ping pong. Wait a minute. Big difference, Drew. Well, what is the difference? Talk to me. Well, technically, the difference is spin. But the way we do it is, like, there's a couple of us who are really into improving and competing.

We table tennis players are a lot more intense than the ping pong players. I did hear it's so good for your brain, isn't it, as you age? It's supposed to be one of the best activities for body mind. Andy, for all of this negative love talk and for getting a chance to talk with you, you're teaching less, but we're on the calendar for later in the year. I'm looking forward to that. Thank you very much. Really appreciate this. Thank you for listening to the Hoffman podcast.

My name is Matt Brannigan. I'm the CEO of the Hoffman Institute Foundation and a Hoffman teacher. Our mission is to provide greater access to the wisdom and power of love within ourselves, in our relationships, and in the world. To learn more or to support our mission, we invite you to visit hoffmaninstitute.org.